The Fat of the Land eBook

CHAPTER XLIX

THE SUNKEN GARDEN

Extending directly west from the porch for 150 feet
is an open pergola, of simple construction, but fast
gaining beauty from the rapid growth of climbers which
Polly and Johnson have planted. It is floored
with brick for the protection of dainty feet, and
near the western end cluster rustic benches, chairs,
tables, and such things as women and gardeners love.
Facing the west 50 feet of this pergola is Polly’s
sunken flower garden, which is her special pride.
It extends south 100 feet, and is built in the side
of the hill so that its eastern wall just shows a
coping above the close-cropped lawn. Of course
the western wall is much higher, as the lawn slopes
sharply; but it was filled in so as to make this wall-enclosed
garden quite level. The walls which rise above
the flower beds 41/2 feet, are beginning to look decorated,
thanks to creeping vines and other things which a
cunning gardener and Polly know. Flowers of all
sorts—­annuals, biennials (triennials, perhaps),
and perennials—­cover the beds, which are
laid out in strange, irregular fashion, far indeed
from my rectangular style. These beds please the
eye of the mistress, and of her friends, too, if they
are candid in their remarks, which I doubt.

While excavating the garden we found a granite boulder
shaped somewhat like an egg and nearly five feet long.
It was a big thing, and not very shapely; but it came
from the soil, and Polly wanted it for the base of
her sun-dial. We placed it, big end down, in the
mathematical centre of the garden (I insisted on that),
and sunk it into the ground to make it solid; then
a stone mason fashioned a flat space on the top to
accommodate an old brass dial that Polly had found
in Boston. The dial is not half bad. From
the heavy, octagonal brass base rises a slender quill
to cast its shadow on the figured circle, while around
this circle old English characters ask, “Am
I not wise, who note only bright hours?” A plat
of sod surrounds the dial, and Polly goes to it at
least once a day to set her watch by the shadow of
the quill, though I have told her a hundred times
that it is seventeen minutes off standard time.
I am convinced that this estimable lady wilfully ignores
conventional time and marks her cycles by such divisions
as “catalogue time,” “seed-buying
time,” “planting time,” “sprouting
time,” “spraying time,” “flowering
time,” “seed-gathering time,” “mulching
time,” and “dreary time,” until
the catalogues come again. I know it seemed no
time at all until she had let me in to the tune of
$687 for the pergola, walls, and garden. She
bought the sun-dial with her own money, I am thankful
to say, and it doesn’t enter into this account.
I think it must have cost a pretty penny, for she
had a hat “made over” that spring.